Enternity Chapter 18 - part four
The word looked so innocent, so simple, printed on clean paper.
Horecrux.
Albus almost couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been, to overlook something like it. They were rare, but he knew a thing or two about rare, dark things. It explained everything - how Tom had survived, his warped magic and mind, the Diary, Myrtle. Not to mention, it would be something Tom Riddle would be familiar with, from having been taught by Aife.
‘Seems that no matter what appearance Mr. Potter has, he always seems to know things he shouldn’t. Which, given his age, makes more sense. Aife would have mentioned this, probably in passing knowing her, explaining something else to Tom.’
He remembered Aife Korasaki, little girl from Wales that came to Hogwarts from nowhere. Her last name indicated that she was muggleborn, but she had known this world. Left a little sister in Wales, came to Hogwarts alone. Sorted into Slytherin after only a few moments under the hat and within her first year she had befriended a Malfoy, a Black, and a Prince. Intelligent, polite, and cunning she had inserted herself into a circle of Purebloods from all the houses and demanded respect from her peers. She was never bullied, not after the first disastrous attempts that some older Slytherins had made in her first year.
Her little sister, Diamond, came to Hogwarts the next year but by then he had been paying too much attention to Tom to pay any more attention to Aife and her sister. He knew, from watching Tom, that Aife took Tom under her wing and that Tom and Diamond became closer and closer as they got older. Diamond was the only girl Tom had ever shown an interest in and Albus had worried for her. Tom had carved his circle of Purebloods, almost modeled after Aife’s circle -Aife had Lycian Malfoy, Cedrella Black, Alphard Black, Orin Black, Claus Prince, and Fergus Bones. They were almost like her inner circle, they studied together and were often seen clumped together somehow - he knew that Lycian and Claus were dating throughout their entire Hogwarts career, but Lycian had married Orin in the end, no doubt due to pressure from their parents. He had no idea what happened to Claus Prince after he graduated. Tom’s circle had been comprised of the younger siblings or cousins of Aife’s group - Abraxas Malfoy, Walburga Black, Cygnus Black, and Eileen Prince. Tom’s circle grew to encompass more people as he spent more time at Hogwarts. But Aife only ever added her sister and Aiden Fawcett, the young man she fell in love with and, truthfully, was still in love with as he reincarnated as Draco Malfoy.
Tom’s group held great respect for Aife’s, that much was obvious, but the two groups didn’t ever really mix. Tom was the only one that would sometimes be seen with Aife’s group, never the other way around. Aife’s group became neutral or left the country when Tom became Voldemort; and if they didn’t leave they died. Tom’s group gradually became Death Eaters and, as they say, that was that. Albus never thought to reach out to Aife’s old group, convinced that they weren’t the type to join his cause; he thought them cowards but now he wondered if he should have tried to get them on his side. Would the death toll been so high if he had them?
After all, Harry was training his friends in magic, advanced and old magic, so most likely he had trained that group as well. If he had not been so sure of himself, could he have gotten strong allies from unexpected places?
A knock on the door broke him from his musings of the past and mistakes. He waved the door open and Bill Weasley, clutching something to his chest, rushed in eyes bright and excited.
“I think I got it! I found it, the text from those books Harry gave the Order. The thing that Merlin stole from Ancient Egypt and summoned: I found it!” Bill exclaimed, clearing Albus’ desk of stray papers and books. Albus grabbed the book on Soul Magic he had been reading - the word Horecrux was still mocking him even as he tried to focus on what Bill was saying.
“I thought it was a spell to make a Guide at first, but that’s not all it is. It’s an experimental ritual to make a super Guide, like one of those things on every enhancer you can think of. It calls for summoning two souls - specifically an akh and an akhet - and mutating them further into one entity and then trapping it into the corpse of a vessel. That vessel then becomes the Guide.” Bill said in a rush, Egyptian tumbling out of his mouth as easily as the English.
“Bill, I’m sure this is fascinating, but Ancient Egypt was never one of my subjects that I knew a lot about.” Albus said.
“Oh, sorry, right. So, an Akh is a transfigured male soul, like a ghost only one without an anchor that keeps it here. A ghost is a soul that is kept here by something, magic most likely, which is why the most popular theory that only wizards and witches become ghosts is held. But, the Egyptians had ways of summoning the dead, souls that moved on, so they had specific names for them. An Akh is a male soul that was ripped from the afterlife, with all their memories still attached, which makes them deformed and often times angry and powerful in that anger.
“An Akhet is a female soul, they’re basically the same thing but they have enough of their humanity and memories left that they still cling to human concepts like gender, ripping them from the afterlife takes their memories of that away from them, so they remember only their life and dying, but nothing after. They were used as curses and weapons during times of war because they couldn’t die and followed the orders of the one who summoned them. They could kill and maim and torture, just like a human, but not die.
“It was considered a sin to summon one though; you had to have permission from Ra and Osiris to get away with summoning one. And then you had to undergo a purification ritual afterward, it’s all very ceremonial. If you didn’t have permission, the Pharaoh would get a vision from Ra and know what you had done and send for you, to kill you. It was a crime punishable by death and disgrace - you would lose your name and your family would be cut from you. It was a major deal. But, anyway, this, this right here, I think this is what Merlin stole. It makes the most sense with that Harry was saying about the thing that he summoned, trying to make a Guide and it got away from him.” Bill explained in a rush.
“And how can we be sure this is what it was that he stole? Not to doubt you, child, but we have to be sure.” Albus said, a headache building from all the new information.
“Because I didn’t find this in a tomb on the site; it was given to me by a Professor, he wanted me to translate it. I’m one of a few handfuls of people who can translate Ancient Egyptian for a reasonable fee and you know where he got this? Rome. Specifically, from a museum that loaned it to him for his thesis; that museum? The only one on Earth that lays claim to Merlin’s Estate. This is it, Albus, this is what he stole. He knew he couldn’t let it out of the wards around his Estate, Egypt would find it, so he kept it there and probably lead people on a wild goose chase trying to find where he had hidden it. But it was just in his house, waiting. No one knew what it was, he had tons of manuscripts and other things littered with Egyptian writing - after all, Rome and Egypt were allies then. The Romans used to call these things man-made demons! This is it, Albus, this is it; we found it.” Bill said, sounding excited and feverish.
“Can we be sure of that? Don’t you think Harry would have found it, if it had been at his Estate all these years? He’s one of the people that was lead on that goose chase, after all.” Albus said, wanting to believe but needing to be one hundred percent sure.
“Was he? Think about it, he probably knew exactly what Merlin stole. Or had a solid idea of what it could be. Harry would have been looking for a reversal or a way to kill the thing, not this. Besides, you’ve read those books he’s given us, haven’t you? Lady Saliar wasn’t exactly all together there at the end, it reads like she lost her mind. And, you were there when he was talking about it, reliving it, he didn’t seem all together. I don’t blame him, but… Albus, Rome fell over a thousand years ago and by Harry’s own admission he’s been cycling through lifetimes ever since. He’s been looking for a way to kill it, but so far hasn’t been successful. I think it’s because he never went looking for the original thing. Why would he need to if he knew what it was in the first place, right?” Bill said.
The theory was sound. For all that Harry might be a very, very old soul trapped, for now, in a teenager’s body that didn’t make him some omnipresent being.
“You think he’s been over looking things because of assumptions or even pride?” Albus asked.
“No. I think he’s been over looking things because of pain and memories and fear. I was able to translate this and realize what it was and rush here because to me, this is a piece of history. I have no part in it, nothing ties me to it. It’s old history. But for Harry? Just being handed something that came from Merlin’s Estate might be too much for him. He knew Merlin. He helped raise Merlin, he fought alongside Merlin, knew his kids, his wife, he knew Merlin. I think that would fuck with anyone.” Bill said quietly.
“I think, to stop whatever it is that is controlling Voldemort, that we need to know what it is. And to do that, we need to know what ritual Merlin bastardized to create it.” Bill continued. “And this is it; I can feel it in my bones.”
Albus trailed a hand over the aged papyrus paper, magic strumming just under his fingers keeping the paper together and strong despite its age.
“I believe you. Get me a translation of it as quickly as you can, but don’t rush it. Feel free to use Latin and English both, if it helps. I also know Ancient Greek if it’s needed, try and get it exact as you can.” Albus ordered.
XXXXXXX
Ron flopped onto the couch with a groan. His whole body ached it seemed like and the couch felt like every good thing about the world all rolled into one object. He might never move again.
“God, I’m sore and not even in a good way. Between Sirius’ defense classes and Harry’s increased training I feel about ready to sleep for a year.” Hermione said, flopping down next to him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she curled even closer to him.
“I hear you. If I never have to participate in a mock battle against you ever again, it’ll be too soon. Also, don’t know what you’re complaining about, at least your defense group can work together; mine was a mess. It’s like they’d never heard of teamwork and Harry threw me into a wall!” Ron whined.
“Ours wasn’t much better, honestly. Neville and Blaise worked to ensure Draco was covered and Harry mostly covered me but no one was covering him or Neville. And I was concentrating too much on knocking you around to actually be any real help; you’re just so much fun to duel.” Hermione said, grinning up at hm. He stuck his tongue out at her and didn’t even feel childish about it.
“Still, your group is the only one without homework, so that means you did well. And you guys got to leave before Peeves came, so consider yourselves lucky.”
“I heard about that; I guess it's good that Peeves is back to his usual ways. Means the castle is safe, right?” Hermione asked.
“Yeah, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sirius that put out by a prank before.” Ron responded.
“How much homework do you have? I’ve got a transfiguration essay, an arithmancy equation to solve, and Harry gave me a book to read. In Russian of all languages, can you believe that?” Hermione said, sounding remarkably like she was a normal teenager complaining about homework.
“Transfiguration essay, helping Luna and Ginny with the Patronus Charm, and Harry gave me an essay to read, on welding fire actually, in French. So, looks like he’s worried about our language skills getting rusty.” Ron said, grinning at her for no real reason.
“We should probably get to it soon then.” Hermione said. Ron nodded, but neither of them made to move.
“You know, I’ve been wondering, like… are we dating or what? Because there was that thing over the summer and it was nice but… we haven’t done anything else since then? So, are we dating or were you just in a vulnerable place and I was there? ‘Cause, I’d really like to date you, so… yeah.” Ron blurted out suddenly.
“We’re dating, I thought it was obvious. I mean… we took a bath together last night. Alone. Without Harry there and… I thought we were dating? We spend all this time together and talk about pretty much everything and… aren’t we dating?” Hermione said, sounding confused. She moved out from under his arm, tucking her legs under her as she turned to look at him.
“We did all that stuff before we were dating though.” Ron pointed out, feeling a little embarrassed. “I mean, doesn’t dating mean more kissing? I mean, if you don’t want to that’s cool too, but I guess I’m a little confused? Because we don’t do anything like that and we don’t hold hands or call each other cute names or even say we’re dating so - ”
He was cut off by Hermione’s lips, soft and feather-light against his own. Her hands touched his face, his neck, before moving away from him completely, almost as if she couldn’t figure out where to put them. She pulled away after a few seconds, before he could gather his wits about him to kiss her back, looking at him with warm eyes and a soft smile.
“If you want to kiss me, do so. You have my express permission, I thought you knew that. We don’t hold hands because that’s not something we do; we can if you want to, it won’t bother me. I like your name, so I don’t call you anything but that. I didn’t think we needed to do anything differently, other than the kissing, which I like a lot.” Hermione said simply.
“Oh.” Ron said dumbly before moving to kiss her again, hesitant and unsure. He wasn’t very good at this, he didn’t think, but then the only other person he’d really kissed had been Harry and kissing Harry was more like being kissed by Harry, not the other way around. Hermione smiled at him when he pulled away.
“So, we’re on the same page?” She asked quietly.
“Yeah, we’re on the same page.” Ron replied. Hermione twisted, leaning against him, a familiar weight against his side.
“After this is all over, there’s gonna be so much work to do.” She said some time later, from nowhere. She didn’t have to specify what she was referring to - the war was a constant thrum in the back of everyone’s mind.
“I can’t even think about that, it seems so far away, like a distant dream.” Ron whispered.
“Or a light at the end of the tunnel. When it gets bad, I think about the after. The laws that need to be changed, the attitudes that need to be re-arranged, the imbalances that must be addressed.” Hermione said.
“Are you planning on ever sleeping again?” Ron teased.
“Sleep is for the weak.” Hermione retorted, grinning. “It’s going to be hard, but someone has to do it and if we leave it to others it’ll never get done. And we’re still young, so we have more time and energy to do what needs to be done. We’re going to live through this, because someone has to be around to clean up this mess. And I have a younger sibling that I want to see, at least once. Even if my parents never know that I saw them.” She continued.
Ron pulled her closer to him, kissing her hair briefly. He hopes that she gets to meet them but fears that it might be too late for hope and life to enter this particular storm.
XXXXXXX
“Albus, what exactly are we looking for? Besides a massively dark object?” Sirius hissed, feeling compelled to keep his voice low. It probably had to do with the run down house they were currently searching - the place gave him the creeps. Obviously abandoned and on the outskirts of a little village that looked like it had seen better days, but there was something sinister here, like something filthy and sad had sunk into the very foundation.
“I’m not entirely sure, Sirius, everything I have researched points to it being a ring of some kind, but having never seen it myself it’s impossible to describe it. I’m not even sure if it is here, but I hope it is.” Albus responded, shooting a spell at a nearby overturned, dust covered, remains of a chair.
“So, we’re on a wild goose chase?” Sirius asked incredulously. Albus sighed, before turning to face Sirius.
“More like a slightly chaotic goose chase, if you will. I’m afraid that times are a little too desperate for anything more exact than that. You’ll have to grant an old man some of your patience on this.”
Sirius was going to respond, demand more of an explanation perhaps, but just then his foot hit something small that sent a chill of wrongness and… something, up his spine. He froze and had his wand trained on it in a second.
Albus didn’t say anything, just bent down to look at it. Sirius hit it with a few detection spells, muttering under his breath about certain paranoid people who would have a thing or two to say about people who just bent down to look at suspicious objects without checking to see if it could burn your eyes out first.
The gold coating of the ring, large with a beautiful gem looking stone set in it, seemed to almost shine in the dim light, making it look shiny and brand new in this dump. Every spell he hit it with came up clean, but more of a new clean then a true one. Like something dark had been in it, but wasn’t anymore. Those results were usually signs that someone had been tipped off to a raid and cleaned all the evidence away.
“It’s clean, a little too much so if you get my meaning, but it reads clean.” Sirius finally pronounced, squatting down to be more level with Albus. The old man picked up the ring carefully, turning it in his hand as he looked it over. “Albus, we should continue to look for that object.” Sirius continued.
“My dear boy, I’m afraid we already found what it is we’re looking for. Look here.” Albus said grimly, holding the ring out so the face was visible. The black stone was cracked down the center, but around the crack was a familiar symbol: a triangle with a circle inside it and a line through the center. Gellert Grindelwald’s mark.
“So, what, ole snake face got a memento from the late Dark Lord and then broke it? What the hell?” Sirius muttered.
“This isn’t just Gellert’s mark, Sirius. This… is baffling. Something strange is afoot here and I’m afraid that I, for once, have no idea what’s going on.” Albus said, a forbidding tone of finality in his voice.
XXXXXX
Gringotts was cold and still around him. The corpse of a dragon was lying in a smoking heap nearby, a smaller dragon’s body was carelessly thrown on top of some goblins. The door to a vault was thrown open, enchantments were sizzling, gold piles disrupted and some objects smoking.
He felt… more, somehow. A piece of himself that he cast away has been returned and it felt like victory, like being the smartest person in the room, like Diamond telling him she loved him.
And just like that, pain took over everything and he curled in on himself, trying to stop it. Agony was not something he has ever liked and this… this was being hungry and listening to the Nuns tell everyone to eat up because Tom can’t have dinner tonight, he’s been bad. This was ice in his bare hands, so cold it's fire, trying to hold back tears because they didn’t ever help. This was walking on a broken ankle and fire licking at his back.
His beautiful bride was dead. Taken from him. And he…
He…
Don’t think about it, it’ll hurt you. Calm yourself, child. I am here.
His master was merciful and took pain away from him, left him powerful and strong. But there was something just on the edge of his memory… something important… so important…
Aife burst into the house, hair flying and eyes wild.
“He’s coming, we don’t have much time!” She shrieked, panicked and there was blood on her hands and a bruise was starting to form on her face. Diamond was shaking next to him and in her arms was…
He stopped trying to remember.